The Presence of GRR

Posted on Sun Dec 9th, 2012 @ 10:17am by Commander Oralia Zeferino & Lieutenant Commander Gilroy

Grief-riddled rage was an emotion Oralia Zeferino was getting used to living with; she’d had her first inklings of it when Connor and her child were taken from her. Now, with her brother gone as well, GRR had taken up a permanent-feeling residence just behind her facade of civility. At the moment, her civility had dropped and the rage was showing as she glared at a young Ensign Carter. “Darwin... just disappeared,” she bit the words out then clenched her jaw shut.

“Yes, Commander,” Carter nodded, wishing he hadn’t pulled the task of being Darwin’s lackey for the week. “We were up there to take a few new readings....”

Despite the twitching muscle in her jaw, Oz filled in the rest, “And he thought it would be okay to enter the Admiral’s office, even though Science sealed the door.” She pulled in a breath and was about to let Carter have the lecture that Darwin should be the recipient of, but Gilroy, whom Carter had woken up with a desperate plea to go with him to break the news to Oralia, coughed sharply.

“Oz,” he caught her attention, easily diverting her wrath away from the Ensign, “We’ll notify Science and make certain that he’s on the list of people to be recovered.”

“Good. He needs to be brought back here so I can kill him,” she said, rubbing a hand across her face. “In the meantime, here are my explicit orders on the matter: no one is to enter the Admiral’s office unless they have clearance from Commander Leroy. Make it known.” She switched subjects quickly, “Do we have any new information on the merchant’s shop or what happened there?”

“We’ve interviewed several other merchants and patrons in the area at the time, none recall seeing anything out of the ordinary,” Gilroy answered. He’d checked with Aliso before coming in to see Oz.

Nothing was quite going her department’s way lately. A murderer had successfully struck close to home; the Admiral, XO and a senior lieutenant were missing; a ‘disruptor accident’ in the commercial sector.... Oralia stopped mentally listing the things that were going wrong. It just made her tired and increased her anger. “How goes the port shutdown?”

“Well, Commander. We have teams stationed at each dock, insuring that no crew returns to their ships without being thoroughly searched. Additionally, each ship currently in port is locked down. There are a few freighter captains who are complaining, but those complaints are going up to the... oh,” Gilroy paused, looking at Oz blankly. “...up to you, as the acting XO.”

“Yes, speaking of, I need to head up to her office and tend to those duties,” Oz grumbled. Technically, she wasn’t Chief of Security right now; Aliso was, but Gilroy was used to reporting to her and she was used to having him report to her... so, here she was. “Make sure you pass on all of this to Aliso, including the acting XO’s orders that no one is to enter the Admiral’s office. Post officers outside that area or have a forcefield put in place to keep people out.” She stood, straightened her tunic with a tug, and added, “I’m off to be the Exec now.”

Both men nodded and Gilroy said, “Good luck with that.” He was only partially kidding; usually they liked passing the complaint bucket to the Exec - but only when the Exec was someone outside of Security. Someone like Li Hawke.

“Gee, thanks,” she shot back and headed out. She had no idea that worse news was yet to come.

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Lt.Commander Oralia Zeferino
Lt. Gilroy
Ensign Carter